Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (March 17, 1989)
Nebraskan Friday, March 17,1988 ii-mm. ---- - -- “~1— mhiw TTTTTlTTTTnnTWTMTMTWBrTfTiaWlirMBMMTMMMM ■ muTi — NU's Richard van Poelgeest battles Arkansas State's Bobby Collins in Thurs day night’s NIT tournament at the Bob Oevaney Sports Center. m uMH III' Iiinn>irninnrwrTiT"iiii ——— - - Huskers defeat Arkansas State in last seconds; season continues By Nick Hodge Senior Reporter One of the season’s smallest Bob Devancy Sports Center crowds provided the Nebraska men’s basketball team with its decisive ‘sixth man’ Thursday night. Comhusker coach Danny Nee said the 8,862 fans that attended Nebraska’s 81-79 win against Arkansas State in the first round of the National Invitation Tournament played a criti cal role in the Huskcr victory. ‘‘1 really thought our crowd was the sixth man,” Nee said. ‘‘The sixth man was the difference in the game.” Huskcr guard Eric Johnson was whistled for a foul with no time remaining on the game clock to send Warrior freshman guard Chris Dillard to the free throw line with Nebraska leading 81-79. In the midst of a deafening frenzy by the Sports Center crowd, Dillard missed the front end of the one-and-one at tempt to give Nebraska the win. The miss left Dillard sobbing and the Husk ers celebrating. W/ith tho iinn MokrooL"! nrxwt 1 7 1 anH assured a winning season, advances to the NIT’s second round next Monday or Tuesday against an undetermined opponent. Nebraska center Rich King said the vocal Husker fans had a definite affect on Dillard's missed free throw. “It made all the difference in the world,” King said. “I’m sure he’d say that the crowd didn’t bother him and that he just didn’t con Cc.ujate because no player likes to say the crowd got to him. But. as much noise as they were making the sound waves were bouncing around in there. I know it had to have had some effect.” But Johnson said he doesn’t think he fouled Dillard. “I thought that I had gotten alt ball,” Johnson said. “I felt that I’d gotten all ball because it kind of got away from him and was in front of him, so I just reached out and knocked it down. But the ref made the call.” With Arkansas Stale leading 79-76 with 48 seconds remaining in the game, Johnson hit a jumper from the free throw line and then made two free throws with 14 seconds left to give ihr Huskers an 80-79 advantage. Johnson, Nebraska’s team captain, said he was determined to make both free throws “I felt they were pretty tough because we were down,” said Johnson, a6-foot-2 native of Brooklyn, N.Y. ‘‘I was just concentrating on making them and putting them in a situation where they had the pressure on them to come down and score, “I thought that if I made these two free throws things would go our way.” And go Nebraska’s way they did. The Warriors were called for a turnover which led to Husker forward Ray Richardson’s free throw with five seconds left to give Ne braska a 81-79 lead. Arkansas State coach Nelson Catalina said he was proud of the Warriors’ comeback. “You have to give our team a lot of credit,” Catalina said. “We were down by 17 at one point and came back and made a game of it.” Nebraska led the Warriors by 17 points twice in the second half. However, Arkansas State battled back behind the performance of forwards John Tate and Ed Louden. Tale scored 11 ot his game-high 23 points in the second half and Louden contributed 17 of his 22 points in the Warriors’ comeback attempt. Catalina said the Warriors, who ended iheir season 20-10, are used to heartbreaking losses. Arkansas State lost six games this season by a total of nine points. ‘‘We didn’t make our free throws,” Catal ina said. ‘‘But you have to give them credit, Johnson made a big-time play at the end.” Nec said the Huskers played their best hall of the season in the first half. Nebraska com mitted just four turnovers, made half of its field goal attempts and connected on 12 of 14 free throws in the first half. Johnson made two baskets in the final minute of the first half as Nebraska scored the half’s final six points to give the Huskers a 42-33 lead at halftime. Huskers to race new breed at tournament By Darran Fowler Staff Reporter Softball is one game, but it’s played in different ways. The Nebraska softball team will be introduced to a different brand of softball when it travels to Tallahas see, Fla., for a three-day invitational tournament this weekend. Nebraska coach Ron Wolforth said the trip will be a new experience for the coaches and players because the Comhuskers are used to the style of play that they see while facing Midwest and West Coast teams. “We have never in the past played Southern and East Coast teams,” Wolforth said. “This is the first op portunity as a team and as a staff to play those teams. Personally, I’ve never been to Florida before so I’m really looking forward to it. We’re "ti going to see a lot ot aitrerent teams that we haven’t seen before.” Nebraska will open the ‘B’ portion af the 19-team tournament by facing Connecticut and Eastern Illinois to day, and will square off against Flor ida A & M and Furman on Saturday. In addition to Nebraska, Connecti cut, Eastern Illinois, Florida A & M and Furman, the teams that will par ticipate in the tournament include; Missouri, Iowa State, Georgia State, Illinois State, Bradley and North Carolina, Ohio State, Northern Illi nois, South Florida, Miami of Ohio, Southern Illinois, Southwest Mis souri Stale, Stetson University of Deland, Fla., and Florida State. The tournament’s bracket compe tition will begin on Saturday, with the semifinals and championship game slated for Sunday. Wolforth said the tournament will ^ -w- A feature offense against defense. He said the Midwest and West Coast teams will employ strong pitching and defense, while the Southern teams will rely on strong offenses. “They play a different brand of bail because their pitching is not quite as strong,” he said.” “They lend to be more offensive oriented compared to that of the Midwest and West Coast teams where pitchers arc so domi nate. “In the South, they have a lot bigger girls, so they go more for the long ball. In the West, we rely much more on being speed oriented and base hitting for runs and leading off with bunts.” Nebraska, 6-10, is coming off a 1 - 6 campaign at the Roadrunncr Invita tional in Las Cruces, N. M. That per formance dropped the Huskers out of the national ratings. Wolforth said one bright spot for Nebraska has been its speed. The Huskcrs have stolen 23 bases this season, which Wolforth said is three limes as many as their opponents. “ 1 f we can put the other aspects of our game together with our running game we’ll really become a factor,” he said. Wolforth said he is not concerned about the attitude of his players. “We just don’t panic,” he said. 4 ‘Over the last three, four years we’ve had plenty of chances to panic, but it’s just not our nature. We still think we can win the Big Eight champion ship and we’re not going to change from that. ‘‘Everyone has to go through ad versity and see how they respond to it and we have another chance to see how we respond this week.” Woltorth said his players always set high goals at the start of each season. He said that is why he is confident about the rest of the season. “Right now, it’s such a shock because we’re not right where we want to be, but that’s not all that bad because we want people that expect excellence and expect to win,” he said. With injuries and personal prob lems out of the way, Wolforth said this weekend’^ tournament is the best position he has been in this season. “One aspect I now have is that l will have everyone this weekend,’’ he said. “This allows me to change the line-up... it allows me variabil ity. If someone was having a bad tourney the past two tournaments I had to stay with them. I can do more coaching this time. That makes me feel very well.” lyreese tor the Heisman wins intramural By Craig Christensen OCR Relations Director All-University Playorf Champion ship will be held Thursday, 6:00 p.m. at the NU Coliseum. _ »y jeii Apei Senior Editor Tyrcesc Knox did not let a good friend down during the -Class ‘C’ intramural basketball championships Thursday at the Military and Naval Science Building. Knox said he was glad he kept a promise while helping Tyrcesc for the Heisman win the title with a 63-53 victory against the Savage Dogs. He said the victory capped off a pre scason challenge made by teammate Bob Cook. Knox said the challenge involved winning the Heisman Trophy. He said Cook touted him as a Heisman candidate when he arrived at Ne braska as a highly publicized running back, but was disappointed when he spent his entire Cornhuskcr career as a reserve. Knox said he was determined not to let Cook down a second time. “He said, ‘Tyreese, you’ve al ready lost one Heisman, don’t lose dlUHIICI, IxllwA N1IU. I Net K1 I wouldn’t.” The Legal Gunners were also not determined to let anyone down, as they used a last-second shot to defeat the Fiji’s 42-40 and win the light weight title. In other intramural action, Schramm 6-A won the residence hall ‘A’ title by defeating Burr-2 West A 72-64, Abel 7-B captured the ‘B’ title by defeating Harper 9-B 67-50 and Gather 4 captured the ‘C’ title by defeatingCather 1047-40. DeltaTau Delta won the fraternity ‘C’ title by defeating Beta C-2 50-51 and Karl’s Running Rebels captured the inde pendent B’ title by defeating the Stones 64-57. Knox said the key to Tyreese for the Hcisman’s victory was balanced scoring and pressure defense. Ty reese for the Hcisman forced the Savage Dogs to commit 24 turnovers, and also bcnefitied from a scoring attack in which five players scored five points or more. Eiiiv «dj;nu, d u-imn-i iui wdiu, led Tyreese for the Hcisman with 21 points. Cartier Walker, a former Nebraska defensive back, added 15, while Steve Sandman had nine. Knox said he wasn’t surprised by Wagner’s performance. He said Wagner has been Tyreese for the Heisman’s big scorer all season. “Thai’s pretty much his game,” Knox said. “He’s a good shooter.” Wagner said he w as confident that he could hit his shots. He collected 12 of his points on 3-point shots, and added the rest from either short jump shots, driving la> ups or free throws. “If I’m open, I can usually hit them,” Wagner said. Savage Dogs forward Kevin Miller, who led his team with 13 points, said he was impressed with Wagner. “(Wagner) was real good,” Miller said. “He hit the 3-pointcrs and he made his free throws down the line.” Miller said the Savage Dogs swucncu irom a /one to a man-to man defense early in the second half in an effort to contain Wagner’s 3 point shooting. That strategy paid off, as the Savage Dogs cut Tyreese for the Heisman’s advantage to 50-48 with 2:01 remaining. But in the game’s closing minutes, Tyreese lor the Heisman used four points from Walker and Sandman, three Irom Dan Ziegler and two from Knox to post the victory. The win raised Tyreese for the Heisman’s record to 10-0, while the Savage Dogs fell to 10-2 Tn the second half we did a real good job early,” Miller said. “But we got out of our game plan and missed some shots at the end.” Knox said Tyreese for the Heis man cherished the victory. He said the win was especially satisfying because this was the team’s first year together. “We’ve got a celebration all planned,” he said. ‘‘Believe it or not, we take this seriously.”